Looking west over the Tipalt–Irthing Gap
In the final revision of my book THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY, I made my case for the name Arthur (from Artorius) having been preserved into the 5th-6th centuries A.D. at or in the vicinity of Carvoran Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall. This fort was garrisoned in the late period by Dalmatians. A woman from Salona was actually buried there. There is very good reason for believing that the 2nd century Roman Lucius Artorius Castus was born in the same Dalmatian town.
The same volume sets out my argument for Arthur's father belonging to the next fort to the west of Carvoran - Birdoswald. Here we have remarkable evidence of an Arthurian period stronghold. The Dacians of draco fame manned Birdoswald for centuries, and it is my contention that Uther Pendragon's epithet and dragon standard both point to this place as the headquarters of Arthur's father. A Ceidio (a hypocoristic form of a name meaning 'Battle-leader') of the 'Bear-people' (*Artenses, preserved in the Welsh eponym Arthwys) in the Irthing Valley may well represent Arthur as 'dux bellorum.' Camboglanna/Camlan, where Arthur fell in his final battle, is also on the Irthing river.
Only recently I became aware of the importance of the "gap" between Carvoran and Birdoswald. Several recent studies have come out that discuss this highly strategic Roman military zone in Northern Britain. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the same region was deemed critical in Arthur's time in terms of the need to control passage north and south of the central section of the Wall.
Precisely because of the presence of the Tipalt-Irthing Gap, we can probably safely say that there was a stronger relationship between Carvoran and Birdoswald than mere physical proximity would indicate.
It is widely accepted that the eventual deployment of the pre-eminent auxiliary unit in Britain, the ala Petriana, at Stanwix indicates that the frontier’s assault capability was ultimately focused on the highway north into western Scotland. The priority for efforts to supervise the Wall curtain itself has received less attention, but one short stretch of the frontier zone in the central sector is identifiable as a consistent focus of activity and innovation: the gap between the Tipalt Burn and the Irthing (Symonds 2017, 39; Fig. 36). Prior to the establishment of Hadrian’s Wall, this stretch was supervised by the fort at Carvoran, and the fortlet at Throp. Further forts and a fortlet shadowed the Irthing as it flowed westwards, while towers were established on both sides of its valley. When work on the mural frontier commenced, the milecastles within the Tipalt-Irthing gap were probably among the first to be completed and manned, and at the very least turrets 48a and 48b are also likely to have been fast-tracked (Hill 1997, 42; Symonds 2005, 76; Graafstal 2012, 150). Construction of the Wall curtain also appears to have been accelerated, while the ditch was unusually substantial (Graafstal 2012, 145–146). Following the fort decision, turrets 44b and 45b – directly east of the eastern lip of this topographical bottleneck – became the most artfully positioned examples known on the Wall. To the west of the gap, where the northern lip of the Irthing valley lies hard to the south of the murus, a fort was established at Birdoswald. It is the milecastles along this strip, numbers 49–54, that appear to have been increased in size when they were rebuilt in stone.
While priority construction within the Tipalt–Irthing gap indicates that it was identified as a critical element of the border zone, the sustained innovation along this stretch of frontier could be a response to an unusual level of pressure. This may have been exacerbated by the decision to run the frontier immediately north of the Irthing valley in Wall miles 49–53, which creates a defensive weakness. Even though additional bridges must surely have spanned the Irthing, reinforcement of, retreat by, or even manoeuvring of the Wall garrisons would have been severely impeded by the river. The southern crest of the Irthing valley offered a far stronger and more conventional defensive position, which was exploited by several Stanegate installations. It is probable that the course of Hadrian’s Wall reflects a desire to deny access to the natural corridor created by the Irthing valley.
The juxtaposition of the Tipalt Burn and the Irthing makes control of this gap the key to regulating regional movement. While the Irthing leads west to the Eden, Carlisle, and the coastal plain, the Tipalt Burn flows into the South Tyne, which offers passage both east towards the intensively populated lowlands and south into the Pennines (Symonds 2017, 39). Indeed, the Roman road that leads into the heart of these hills and is now known as the Maiden Way intersects with the Tipalt valley just 1.5 km south of the Wall. In essence, the Tipalt–Irthing gap is a natural junction where passages to both sides of the country open and penetration of the Pennines is possible. Rebuilding the original Turf Wall milecastles 49–54 to unusual size at a time when the fort decision seems to have lessened the importance of many milecastles suggests that existing measures along the length of Wall cut off by the Irthing were found wanting. Critically, though, these revisions imply that local disruption was ordinarily on a scale that could be met by fortlet garrisons. There is, then, every sign that the Tipalt–Irthing gap represented the greatest geographical obstacle to achieving control of north–south movement in the central sector, and that the army understood this and responded accordingly.
One technique to enhance the Wall’s effectiveness as a barrier that has yet to be detected in the Tipalt–Irthing gap is the provision of berm obstacles. These are currently only known to occur in the vicinity of Newcastle, although they have also yet to be sought along many stretches of Hadrian’s Wall. If berm obstacles do prove to be restricted to the eastern sector, they could represent an attempt to tailor the frontier to the human rather than the physical geography. Although the Tipalt–Irthing gap offers the easiest access to the widest number of destinations south of the Wall, on current knowledge the eastern and western sectors of the frontier brought the greatest harm to indigenous interests. This is because these regions were the most densely populated areas divided by the border. In terms of the raw mathematics of frontier control, if there were more people to control, and by default more people whose livelihoods and lifestyles were harmed by the border, it would be sensible to factor that into the design of the Wall and its construction timetable. Indeed, it is possible to advance a logical overall construction scheme for the frontier, with the most heavily populated east and west sectors being closed first, alongside measures to address particularly sensitive areas like the Tipalt–Irthing gap and the North Tyne valley. Control was then incrementally tightened as construction progressed (Symonds and Breeze 2016, 12).
Another excellent site that discusses Birdoswald and Carvoran as guarding the Tipalt-Irthing Gap is here:
Assessing the Wall forts corroborates this impression that important natural and artificial landscape features received special treatment. The distance between Chesters Fort and its neighbour, for instance, was reduced to six Roman miles, allowing it to dominate the North Tyne valley. An additional fort was later founded only 3²⁄³ Roman miles away at Carrawburgh, creating a concentration of force in the vicinity of the North Tyne valley. The same is true of the Tipalt–Irthing gap, where the forts on its flanks at Birdoswald and Carvoran lay only 3¹⁄³ Roman miles distant, while a third fort was established just three Roman miles away. Indeed, when various unusual Wall elements are superimposed on a single map, they reveal a concentration of anomalies in and around the Tipalt–Irthing gap. That this natural junction in the landscape occasioned so many departures from what might be considered normal suggests that an ability to clamp down on movement is central to what the army was attempting to achieve with Hadrian’s Wall.
For additional information on the signficance to the Romans of the Tipalt-Irthing Gap, see
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.